(USA From 1989 Episodes = 22-26 min)
Creator Matt Groening; Writers James L Brooks, Matt Groening, Sam Simon, John Swartzwelder and 65 others; Music Alf Clausen, Richard Gibbs, Arthur B Rubinstein; Voice Acting Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson), Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson), Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson), Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson)
by Stephen Russell-Gebbett
Come on Homer, Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.
That’s not how I remember it!
There are plenty of hugely popular and long-lasting cultural phenomena that appear immune to criticism. To some extent, taking Citizen Kane and The Godfather as prime examples, the hyped, synthesised image has taken over from the real, organic one.
Not The Simpsons.
Its elevated, nay worshipped, status is based on continuous reappraisal, on being seen week in and week out by a general public that leads the way. There is no time for critics or for tyrannical consensus, or for mere forgetfulness, to take it hostage. The Simpsons has to prove itself each episode, where success isn’t in dry polls or in a phantom objectivity but ever-evolving in our living rooms.
The Simpsons is so culturally ingrained that we cannot imagine a time before it. This is a colossal achievement in itself, to become part of the fabric of people’s lives. One of the great marvels of The Simpsons is how diverse people’s responses are to it. A Simpsons fan can gleefully shout out “D’oh!” or “Woohoo!” to which another fan may roll his eyes and think “that’s not my Simpsons”. There is so much to take from it and room for so many experiences within it.
I could say “what more can we say about The Simpsons that hasn’t been said” but you shouldn’t need an excuse to talk about something that gives so much pleasure.
For me, the joy of The Simpsons lies, as much as in its comic genius, in its unassuming charm. Whenever Homer tucked Maggie into bed or Bart and Lisa reconciled after a feud it didn’t matter if it was funny or not. Nobody cared if they were laughing as long as they were smiling. The Simpsons are a family you want to be a part of. Their lives are so well drawn as to feel real, yet The Simpsons always retains the ‘anything goes’ parallel language, morals and physicality of animation that allow any flaw and act of gratuitous choking or the creepy forever-young loop to be quickly forgiven and forgotten. All its humour would have been cold, or even offensive, without good humour. That is to say, affection.
Bart and young Lisa
Who could not be moved when, Homer explaining why there are no pictures of Maggie in the photo album, we see her cute face, eyes beaming, stuck all over his factory office wall. Whether Bart’s label is naughty, Lisa’s conscientious, Marge’s irritable or Homer’s dopey, they are first and foremost brothers, sisters, children, parents. Who knew splodges of yellow ink could share such a bond?
The Simpsons uses a battery of humour unprecedented on television. Its comedy is a delicious melange of slapstick, wordplay, giddy fun, irony, blanket satire, parody, erudite literary references, character nuance, simple exaggeration… Indeed, there is probably no colour in the spectrum of mirth and merriment that The Simpsons hasn’t been drawn with. When they get the laughs just right, the tears flow, and your sides hurt. It is the best of both worlds: high and low, conservative and irreverent, profound and frivolous. It knows when acts have to have consequences and when they can be thrown away for an inconsequential caper.
Who leaves Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
It is a classic of story through character and humour through both. No drama, soap or comedy before or since has juggled so many characters so effectively.
Later series showed that this juggernaut of invention had run out of steam, with Springfield’s population reduced to (bad) gag machines, their voices becoming harsher, the heart seeping out. Yet perhaps this (inevitable?) drop-off makes us realise how special The Simpsons is, that the impact it made and the enjoyment it brought should be cherished, for nothing lasts forever.
Homer eating his beloved lobster Pinchy (“I wish Pinchy were here to enjoy this”), Millhouse playing the ridiculously expensive Waterworld video game, Marge reeling off her family’s allergies (Bart’s are butterscotch, imitation butterscotch and glow-in-the-dark monster makeup), Lisa’s sweet crush on Mr Bergstrom, or Ken Griffey Jr.’s grotesquely swollen jaw. The list is endless. The Simpsons influenced comedy from Arrested Development to King of the Hill but it cannot be replicated, not even, any more, by its own writers.
A giant of modern American Art.
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Wonders in the Dark 
O. M. G.!!!!!!!!!
Wait till Dennis gets here Stephen!!!
He will be celebrating in the streets in good old Fairview, New Jersey tonight (actually in neighboring Cliffside Park, New Jersey where he works as a night dispatcher!)
He has praised this for many years, and I must say I do love the show too. My kids have moved on to FAMILY GUY now, but THE SIMPSONS are incomparable in that sense and in so many more. This is one choice I can’t do justice to with a plain old comment here.
Stephen my friend, I salute you for this ingenius surprise!
Haha!
I remember Dennis being dismayed at me choosing SPACE GHOST and hoping THE SIMPSONS wouldn’t be left off. I did think about placing it at number one.
“This is one choice I can’t do justice to with a plain old comment here.”
I found it difficult to sum up something that has so many aspects to it, something so loved by so many people.
Why does this get so much praise?
Why does it that this characters feel so close to our hearts?
Why is this one of the best TV series in the history of existence?
I’ve had luck in my life of having a clumsy local channel that whenever they don’t have a good program, they put 2 to 3 episodes from this magnificent series.
I’ve known these episodes for years, seen them countless times, each of the situations you named sparked many memories about them, remembering the best quotes and the happiness they bring to my life almost every afternoon.
Sometimes people asociate songs with moments from their lifes. I find that pretentious and stupid, I associate episodes of The Simpsons with moments from life.
Stephen, you mentioned one of my favorite moments of Fiction with the Pinchy episode, that brings me back to the first time I saw it, with a towel around my waist, after being on the pool, sitting beside four friends, watching the TV, laughing together.
Besides, that episode is frigging hilarious!
“Why is this one of the best TV series in the history of existence?”
Because it would take so long to detail the various parts of its brilliance. The Pinchy episode (‘LISA GETS AN A’) is my favourite. Interesting that a certain episode or bit of an episode can bring back memories of your life – it goes to show, like I said, how it has become part of many people’s everyday existence.
I’d say it is the best TV Series I’ve seen. I would put it slightly ahead of TWIN PEAKS and MOONLIGHTING.
What do you consider the best series Jaime?
I don’t know… I don’t see many TV series fully, nor I rate them (unless they’re one season wonders or miniseries).
This is up there, maybe with “Lost”.
You mean “Moonlighting” with Bruce Willis? Wow, my dad the other day showed it to me. It was funny.
SEINFELD… when Larry David was at the helm is really the cat’s meow.
THE HONEYMOONERS, in all of their 39 episode glory would, most probably, be my choice. Considering their repeatability, simplicity and gargantuan acting talents, it still has the ability to instigate massive belly laughs and hysterical snickering. It’s smart, well written and all the more amazing considering it was only on the air for one season before Jackie Gleason withdrew it. 39 episodes? Every one is a classic.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE is another I would take into consideration. A different story and different moral with every episode and all the more brilliant as they’re constructed and presented like mini-movies. Rod Serling, Richard Matheson and a bevvy of some of the best writers in Sci-Fi and Fantasy headed the scribes on what could be the most perfectly constructed series in American television history.
ALL IN THE FAMILY, even better than the British series by Johnny Speight that influenced it, it dared to focus on hot button topics of the period (Viet Nam, Rape, Wife Swaping, Homosexuality, Death and Abortion) while remaining blisteringly funny at the same time. The acting foursome of Carroll O’Connor as Archie, Jean Stapleton as Edith, Rob Reiner as Meathead and Sally Stuthers as Gloria might be the most perfect teaming in all of television sitcoms.
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW never ceases to amaze. Juggling more than a dozen major characters it never loses track of its themes about women in the workplace and as social equals to men. Moore herself was already an established TV commodity with the meteoric DICK VAN DYKE when she took this starring role. Gambling on a show that took a very feministic view, the show was one of the most successful that CBS had surrounding a single star as it revealed itself as one of the best written and performed shows of the 1970’s. The cast of the show has moved into legendary status and repeat viewings only prove how great it truly was.
THE WALTONS, Earl Hammner’s loving account of his life in depression era Virginia may be the most nostalgiac and loving look at big family life ever produced for television. It success was based on the honesty of its story-telling and its accurate look at the bygone days of years past. Micheal Lerned was a weekly tour-de-force as Olivia, the matriarch of the extended family and her performances are the stuff of legend. She and the show Emmy’d almost consistantly with each year the show was in production. Jerry Goldsmiths jug-band title music is recognized the moment the first chords are struck.
MONTY PYTHONS FLYING CIRCUS. If anarchy had a way of making itself physical then the troup that made up this pseudo variety/comedy series would be the one. Veering off from reality with every sketch this show proved that Tv comedy could be so off-the-wall that doctors would have to be summoned to surgery to for split sides. Watch out!!!!! Terry Gilliam (director of BRAZIL and FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS)’s animations are a pure concoction of gore and violent insanity that should be exp[erienced by all before they die.
BATMAN; THE ANIMATED SERIES took the look of Tim Burton’s nightmarish vision of Gotham City and dotted it with deeper characterizations than even the comics had ever attempted with intricate plots and running storylines that can only be described as operatic. Shirley Walkers musical scores for each episode were the icing on the cake as well as Mark (Luke Skywalker) Hammills creepy and dead-one interpretaion of Batman’s arch enemy, the psychotic Joker. This is BATMAN as he should be; deely flawed and grief stricken by the guilt of his family’s demise. One seen, this show is addictive.
SESAME STREET. Say what you will but no other show in any country or in any language has spoken directly and effectively as this whimiscal foray into early learning. Combining live action comedy routines with Jim Henson’s unforgettable Muppet characters and animated shorts, this is the show that will teach YOUR kids how to read and write. Add a little weed and a tab of Ecstasy to your diet for an evening and YOU will be delighted to find how wonderfully fantastic this show is as well. COOOOOOOOL MAAAAAAAAN.
SEINFELD. It’s precisely the ridiculousness of the situations that act as the life-blood to what can probably be the funniest show since the HONEYMOONERS and after THE SIMPSONS. All the stupidity is based on actual accounts from madman Larry David’s own personal life and it’s a reminder to us all that life is far more bizarre than what we see on TV. Jason Alexander as George Costanza may be the greatest single character ever created for television since Jackie Gleason and Art Carney strolled in front of the cameras as Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton on THE HONEYMOONERS. It’s slick, silly and, finally, truthful stupidity of the highest order.
SIX FEET UNDER may have been the most daring show in the history of television. Following the exploits of a family of morticians in California, it was a reminder to us all that death and chance play a heavier part in our day to day struggles here on earth. It was also the most accurate depiction of Homosexuality TV has ever seen with main characters David and his boyfriend Keith and slide effortlessly from reality to surrealism with breathless aplomb. Created and head written by Academy Award winning scribe Alan Ball (AMERICAN BEAUTY), this show proved that soap opera underpinnings didn’t always have to seem like soap opera. It breathtaking original, loaded with ingenuity and boasted one of the most impressive casts of main and supporting performers in past two decades. HBO may have had a runaway hit with THE SOPRANOS, but SIX FEET UNDER was the best show they ever presented (along with THE WIRE)…
“The X-Files” hasn’t yet been mentioned. While I’m not crazy about some of the monster-of-the-week episodes, and it plainly lost a lot of steam when Duchovny left the show in its late seasons, for the most part it was fantastic. A great blend of sci-fi and paranoia-thriller.
Dammnit, BOB, I knew I forgot one!!!!!!!!!!!
I would also mention “The Prisoner”, of course, but at first I thought we were talking about shows that are ubiquitously broadcast enough so that you could walk into a motel room and just find an episode of it playing some evening. That’s true for many good shows (I’ve enjoyed crashing on a bed for the night somewhere away from home and finding a random rerun of “Lost” on the air), but not really for McGoohan’s masterpiece (though I do love that people still debate what order to play them in).
Jaime,
Yes, MOONLIGHTING with Bruce Willis! Very funny, very clever and a beautifully played romance.
Although I haven’t seen much of LOST I couldn’t get into it.
Jamie,
SEINFELD was very hit and miss for me – some times brilliant, most times poor. My favourite episode (and by no means have I seen them all) is THE BURNING.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus dammit! That’s one hell of a choice, I knew I could’ve said something better than Lost.
I’ve seen almost all episodes, I’m just missing a few from Season 4, not because I don’t like them, usually their wild quality surpasses some of the Season 1 episodes, but I just saw it in order and I was put to a halt.
I also like Futurama.
Nice piece on a great show. Thanks for this.
Thanks JPK.
I see you have a musical countdown on your blog – the kinds of songs I am not particularly familiar with.
MY FAVORITE JOKE EVER:
MARGE is seen sitting on the sofa, knitting. BART and LISA are laying in front of the TV. MAGGIE is sucking her passifyer as she pulls the cats tail. SANTA’S LITTLE HELPER (the dog) is to the left of the frame, licking his balls…
HOMER IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN…
SUDDENLY, there is the sound of a flushing toilet from the background.
HOMER calls out: “MARGE, IT HAPPENED AGAIN”
HOMER enters the living room in nothing but his underwear breifs with the a toilet plunger stuck to his forehead.
I was watching TV one night as I ate a bowl of cold spaghetti. As usual THE SIMPSONS were showing in reruns at 7:30pm. When that joke played out in front of me I prectically shot the spaghetti I was eating through my nostrils because of convulsive laughter.
THE SIMPSONS, now in its staggering 21st year of first-run teleplays, is the single greatest and most sucessful sitcom in American television history (Matt Groening has signed up for another 5 years of the show, making it the longest running TV series in history) and it’s neverending appeal, that has created an obsessive fan-base, is simple. The show is about REAL people.
But, real, as we know real to be, comes to us not in the look or the characters of the show, it comes from the exagerration of those little embarassing moments and thoughts we all have had at one point in time or another. Matt Groening, the creator and head writer of the show, feeds off these situations and off-putting remarks and takes them to the Nth degree. It is a formula that takes the staple core of sitcoms and turns them on their ear and, using animation, affords his characters to do what most sitcom writers dream of doing in live action.
We all know kids like Bart and Lisa, Marge is that life-affirming Mom that sat at the foot of our beds and tried her best to inspire and support… From the Apu at the QUICK-E-MART to Otto the stoned school bus driver, the town of Springfield USA is dotted with residents that bare the same striking resemblances to the people we converse with everyday. The genius of the show is that we really think this over-the-top gathering of odd-balls are really something we have never seen before and we’re foolish for not realizing that we have. In and of itself, this is Groening’s greatest achievement, the perverbial mirror being thrown in front of us and being forced to see, truly see ourselves for the funny, often ridiculous race of creatures we are.
But, then there is HOMER J. SIMPSON.
Words truly fail me when I try to put a definition behind what I think this character means. He’s crude and crass, his stupidity trumps that of Archie Bunker, Al Bundy, Ralph Kramden and Fred Mertz all put together. He is the conglomerration of every social and domestic blunder ever concieved within the history of the human race…
And, yet, he still speaks his mind as truthfully and as brevely as a president, priest or inspirational speaker. He believes in what he is (although he himself really hasn’t figured out what that would be, and he probably never will) and he’s a good person above all. He loves his kids (well, most of the time) and his wife (all of the time), and above all things, knows he would be lost without them. His thinking may have strayed off course but his heart is always in the right place.
No, the genius is in the familiarity.
We KNOW Homer J. Simpson.
He IS us.
I started watching in 1989 and I haven’t missed an episode (the new ones can be seen for free on the SIMPSONS official web-site). What amazes me to this day is that, no matter what, each episode contains, at least, one joke among the many per episode, that will leave me rolling on the floor.
This isn’t just funny. This is ACHINGLY funny.
Homer creates his own religion so he can stay home and watch the football games on Sunday only to fall asleep on the couch with a cigar in his mouth and burns the house down.
Homer has his eyes pecked by crows and is given medicinal marijuana for the pain only to have him and Otto upstairs in the attic getting wreaked, making lewd passes at Marge and oggling black-light posters.
Homer decides to baloon to 350 pounds so he can be declared too fat to work at the plant and be given a stay-at-home position.
Homer take the family on a camping trip and is mistaken for Bigfoot.
Homer is declared insane and is thrown into a mental hospital where his room-mate is a gargantuan, white bald headed man who thinks he’s Micheal Jackson (voiced by Micheal Jackson by the way).
These are just a few of the story lines that have threaded 21 great years of episodes. These are stories and situations that make us realize that the absirdities of our own lives are common practice and that we should laugh at them as much as we laugh at the absurdities that this show depicts.
THE SIMPSONS have been on the air now for 21 years and show no signs of slowing.
Matt Groening must be doing something right.
Yeah, he is…
He showed us ourselves.
I couldn’t agree with this choice more.
Dennis, the characters do feel real – and the familiarity you talk about doesn’t breed contempt.
I like the running joke of what Homer says he had always dreamed of doing or being : going into space, owning the Dallas Cowboys etc. I like that crazy impulsiveness.
I also like how Lisa’s heart, when suddenly trampled, seems to make all the jokes and the whole world of Springfield disappear until Homer or Bart have made their peace with her.
There are so many brilliant one-off gags too : the Japanese washing powder advert with Homer’s head (“I am disrespectful to dirt”), Homer escaping on a swan pedalo and paddling it all the way home and onto his driveway, the python sold by the metre, or this incident with Hank Scorpio’s coat:
Hank: Would you mind hanging my coat up on the wall, please?
Homer: Mm-hmm. [taking his coat] Hmm, uh, let’s see…
[the floor is one big room, with windows all around]
Um, uh, well, uh…
Hank: [laughs] Relax, Homer. At Globex, we don’t believe in walls.
Matter of fact, I didn’t even give you my coat.
Homer: Mmm? [his hands are indeed empty]
[Hank is now wearing his coat – the wrong way round]
Wow.
Its actually Millhouse who plays the Waterworld game.
Oh, OK. Thanks Hobo.